This book offers ethical and political approaches to issues that nonhuman animals face. The recent 'political turn' in interspecies ethics, from ethical to political approaches, has arisen due to the apparent lack of success of the nonhuman animal movement and dissatisfaction with traditional approaches. Current works largely present general positions rather than address specific issues and principally rely on mainstream approaches. This book offers alternative positions such as cosmopolitan, libertarian, and left humanist thought, as well as applying ethical and political (...) thought to specific issues, such as experimentation, factory farming, nonhuman political agency, and intervention. Presenting work by theorists and activists, insights are offered from both ethics and politics that impact theory and practice and offer essential considerations for those engaging in interspecies ethics within the political turn era. (shrink)

Within our chapter, we consider the divide between theorists and activists within the nonhuman animal movement. We consider the recent reflections on the successes and failures of the movement before arguing that instead of a methodological reason that perhaps the source of the movement’s overall lack of success is the result of this theory/practice gulf. In the first part of the chapter we consider how both theory and practice must be linked together in order for the nonhuman movement to become (...) more effective, and argue that activists ought to ground their action more than currently occurs while theorists must focus more on actual, practical ways to aid nonhuman animals while also actively partake in action themselves. In the second part we consider this approach in regard to anthropocentrism and the poorly explored intersection between interspecies ethics and the ethics of war and self-defence. We argue that with the former, anthropocentrism when understood correctly not only results in problems for the movement that need to be confronted but that rejecting anthropocentrism has important implications on theoretical and practical issues, such as intervention. With the latter, we argue that questions concerning direct action and the moral permissibility of using violence to protect nonhuman animals from human oppression cannot be answered within interspecies ethics alone. It is necessary to make use of a more sophisticated and accurate terminology, which can only be found in the ethics of war and self-defence literature. (shrink)

Within ‘animal ethics’, and indeed with most debates concerning nonhumans, speciesism is often cited as the prejudice which most human-people (often unknowingly) hold and which ultimately lies as the underlying justification for (i) all of the arguments in support of factory farming, experimentation, hunting, and so on, and (ii) the lesser status and consideration that is given to nonhuman animals in ethical, political, legal, and social deliberations. Despite this, scholars have increasingly argued that ‘human chauvinism’, not speciesism in general, is (...) a more accurate description of this prejudice, as speciesism can apply to any arbitrary species-preference whereas human chauvinism applies specifically to arbitrary preferences in favour of humans. Whichever term one uses, the aim of identifying whether a position rests solely on speciesism or human chauvinism is to see whether the argument put forward has a justifiable basis or is founded merely on a prejudice. The intention of this is usually an aim to demonstrate that the underlying problem that gives rise to the issues in ‘animal ethics’ is speciesism or human chauvinism, and thus that it is either of these that we must understand and eradicate before approaching the issues. In this paper I argue that while this attempt to resolve the issues has generally been a correct philosophical strategy, and largely convincing, it is anthropocentrism that is not only a greater problem for nonhuman animals but that is also the ultimate cause of most of the issues arising in ‘animal ethics’. I begin by considering what anthropocentrism is and how it is distinct from, yet related to, speciesism and human chauvinism. I argue that anthropocentrism is similar to androcentrism, in that it can include a chauvinism but can also involve unintentional world-views and systems of belief that goes beyond this. These additional elements, I argue, bias investigation and any positions put forward in the debates, while also creating new – and often unnoticed – difficulties for nonhumans. I explain why anthropocentrism as thus-defined is problematic for nonhuman animals, emphasizing the additional ways in which anthropocentrism raises difficulties for them, before explaining how anthropocentrism is related to (and likely causes) most of the issues relating to nonhumans; such as questions relating to culture, afterlife, property, intervention, hunting, entertainment, experimentation, consumption, activism, and so on. I finally point out how anthropocentrism is even involved within ‘animal ethics’, including those positions that reject speciesism and human chauvinism, and thus conclude that even while attempting to aid nonhumans these positions do not, and perhaps cannot, do as much as they could due to their implicit anthropocentrism. I then attempt to show how this situation may be resolved by recognizing, and removing (or at least limiting) as much anthropocentrism as possible when approaching the issues. I argue that this can be achieved by (truly) considering humans just as another animal that is no more special than any other, and attempting to consider all nonhuman points of view as of equal relevance in any issue. This, I claim, would have a profound effect not only for nonhumans and for the proposed resolutions made for each issue, but also for ‘animal ethics’, and more importantly for humanity and human society at large. (shrink)

Within current political, social, and ethical debates – both in academia and society – activism and how individuals should approach issues facing nonhuman animals, have become increasingly important, ‘hot’ issues. Individuals, groups, advocacy agencies, and governments have all espoused competing ideas for how we should approach nonhuman use and exploitation. Ought we proceed through liberation? Abolition? Segregation? Integration? As nonhuman liberation, welfare, and rights’ groups increasingly interconnect and identify with other ‘social justice movements’, resolutions to these questions have become increasingly (...) entangled with questions of what justice and our ethical commitments demand on this issue, and the topic has become increasingly significant and divisive. -/- The book considers how this question, and contemporary issues facing nonhumans (such as experimentation, hunting, and factory farming) should be answered by drawing on both theory and practice in order to provide grounded, yet actionable, ways forward. -/- Indicatively, the book covers topics such as: • The intersection between interspecies ethics and the ethics of war and self-defence • Nonhuman animals as political subjects and acting agents • Whether we should intervene for nonhuman animals in cases of natural disaster • Various explorations of why the nonhuman movement may not be succeeding as well as it could be • Comparisons between the nonhuman movement and other social movement • Arguments for and against intervening to help or save nonhumans, and how far we may go • What intervention could ultimately mean for nonhumans -/- The book is therefore intended not only to provide new and interesting insight into the area and important contemporary discussions, but also to constructively aid the nonhuman movement and unite theory and practice on the crucial issues. With the nonhuman movement and its past approaches currently being questioned as a success, more nonhumans than ever being harmed and exploited, and a growing gulf between activists and scholars, this book will not only be a timely addition to the literature, but an attempt to bridge these gaps and move both theory and practice – and thus the movement and field – forward. (shrink)

It is often said, metaphorically, that belief "aims" at the truth. This paper proposes a normative interpretation of this metaphor. First, the notion of "epistemic norms" is clarified, and reasons are given for the view that epistemic norms articulate essential features of the beliefs that are subject to them. Then it is argued that all epistemic norms--including those that specify when beliefs count as rational, and when they count as knowledge--are explained by a fundamental norm of correct belief, which requires (...) that, if one considers a proposition at all, one should believe it if and only if it is true. (shrink)

According to epistemological internalism, the rationality of a belief supervenes purely on "internal facts" about the thinker's mind. But what are "internal facts"? Why does the rationality of a belief supervene on them? The standard answers are unacceptable. This paper proposes new answers. "Internal facts" are facts about the thinker's nonfactive mental states. The rationality of a belief supervenes on such internal facts because we need rules of belief revision that we can follow directly, not by means of following any (...) other rules, and the proximate explanation of any belief revision always consists of such internal facts. (shrink)

This book evaluates the widespread preference in philosophy of mind for varieties of property dualism over other alternatives to physicalism. It takes the standard motivations for property dualism as a starting point and argues that these lead directly to nonphysical substances resembling the soul of traditional metaphysics. In the first half of the book, the author clarifies what is at issue in the choice between theories that posit nonphysical properties only and those that posit nonphysical substances. The crucial question, he (...) argues, is whether one posits nonphysical things that satisfy an Aristotelian-Cartesian independence definition of substance: nonphysical things that could exist in the absence of anything else. In the second half, the author argues that standard and Russellian monist forms of property dualism are far less plausible than we usually suppose. Most significantly, the presuppositions of one of the leading arguments for property dualism, the conceivability argument, lead by parity of reasoning to the view that conscious subjects are nonphysical substances. He concludes that if you posit nonphysical properties in response to the mind-body problem then you should be prepared to posit nonphysical substances as well. Mainstream philosophy of mind must take nonphysical substances far more seriously than it has done for the best part of a century. The Mind-Body Problem and Metaphysics will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Peterson’s book offers an appraisal of current approaches to environmental and animal ethics and deftly critiques the traditional division between the two fields. Attempts to unite the two fields, Peterson claims, have made little progress. Most have concluded that the divide between the two is irreconcilable, but Peterson argues that the divide is counterintuitive, does not reflect our current practice, and does not represent nature, nonhuman-animals, or humanity, correctly.Throughout the book Peterson attempts to demonstrate why other theories have failed, arguing (...) that the mutual exclusivity of the two fields derives from each relying on an incorrect idea of how nature, nonhumans, and humans relate to—and depend upon—each other. Our actual behaviour shows that we do not think that we must be either an environmental or an animal ethicist, but that we act as if we are both. Peterson argues that by challenging this idea of mutual exclusivity a new theory can be put forward that represen .. (shrink)

This book gives a general theory of rational belief. Although it can be read by itself, is a sequel to the author's previous book The Value of Rationality (Oxford, 2017). It takes the general conception of rationality that was defended in that earlier book, and combines it with an account of the varieties of belief, and of what it is for these beliefs to count as "correct", to develop an account of what it is for beliefs to count as rational. (...) According to this account, rationality comes in degrees: the degree to which one's beliefs counts as rational is determined by their distance from a corresponding probability function - where this distance is measured by those beliefs' "expected degree of incorrectness" according to the probability function; the account also involves an explanation of what determines exactly which probability function plays this role in each case, and of why this probability function should play this role. In developing and defending this account, new light is shed on several central epistemological issues. These issues include: the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification; the debates between internalism and externalism, and between foundationalism and coherentism; the significance - or lack of it - of the notion of 'evidence'; the relationship between credences, full belief, inference, and suspension of judgment; the nature of the kind of possibility that is presupposed by the relevant sort of probability; and whether rationality is "diachronic" - so that the beliefs that it is rational for us to have now depend, in part, on the beliefs that we held in the past. Finally, some suggestions are made about how this theory bears on a range of further topics, including the defeasibility of inference, scepticism, and the analysis of knowledge. (shrink)

Here is a definition of knowledge: for you to know a proposition p is for you to have an outright belief in p that is correct precisely because it manifests the virtue of rationality. This definition resembles Ernest Sosa’s “virtue theory”, except that on this definition, the only virtue that must be manifested in all instances of knowledge is rationality, and no reductive account of rationality is attempted—rationality is assumed to be an irreducibly normative notion. This definition is compatible with (...) “internalism” about rationality, and with a form of “pragmatic encroachment” on the conditions of rational outright belief. An interpretation is given of this definition, and especially of the sense of ’because’ that it involves. On this interpretation, this definition entails that both safety and adherence are necessary conditions on knowledge; it supports a kind of contextualism about terms like ‘knowledge’; and it provides resources to defend safety, adherence, and contextualism, against some recent objections. (shrink)

v. 1. Inheritance and vocation.--v. 2. Philosophy and psychology.

Let us take an example that Bernard Williams (1981: 102) made famous. Suppose that you want a gin and tonic, and you believe that the stuff in front of you is gin. In fact, however, the stuff is not gin but petrol. So if you drink the stuff (even mixed with tonic), it will be decidedly unpleasant, to say the least. Should you choose to drink the stuff or not?

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Der (un)teilbare Geist" verfügbar.

My aim in this chapter is to defend the claim that “the intentional is normative” against a number of objections, including those that Georges Rey has presented in his contribution to this volume. In the first section of this chapter, I shall outline a specific version of this claim; and in the second section, I shall give a quick sketch of the principal argument that I have used to support this claim, and briefly comment on Rey’s criticisms of this argument.

The pres ent book aims to exemplify the latter rather than the former method, and if it should prove tedious, that fault will be due in part, at least, to the ...

Moral philosophy has long been preoccupied by a supposed dichotomy between the "good" and the "right". This dichotomy has been taken to define certain allegedly central issues for ethics. How are the good and the right related to each other? For example, is one of the two "prior" to the other? If so, is the good prior to the right, or is the right prior to the good?

Many philosophers have thought that colours or flavours or values are in some way less objective than shape or mass or motion. This paper explores the approach to capturing this thought that is based on the idea of ‘ response-dependence ’. First, it is argued that the conceptions of response-dependence developed by Mark Johnston, Philip Pettit and Crispin Wright fail to capture this thought adequately. Then, the rest of the paper proposes an alternative conception, based in part on Kit Fine's (...) notion of " essence ", which looks more likely to succeed in capturing the thought adequately. (shrink)

Is there any distinctive aspect of rationality that deserves the label of “instrumental rationality”? Recently, Joseph Raz (2005) has argued that instrumental rationality is a “myth”. In this essay, I shall give some qualified support to Raz’s position: as I shall argue, many philosophers have indeed been seduced by certain myths about instrumental rationality. Nonetheless, Raz’s conclusion is too strong. Instrumental rationality is not itself a myth: there really is a distinctive aspect of rationality that deserves the label of “instrumental (...) rationality”. -/- In the first two sections of this essay, I shall start by giving a rough intuitive description of the phenomenon that seems to me the best candidate for the label “instrumental rationality”. As we shall see, this rough description gives us reason to reject some of the myths that surround instrumental rationality. Then in the rest of this essay, I shall try to give a more precise general specification of this phenomenon. In Sections 3 and 4, I shall consider what has been said about instrumental rationality by several other philosophers. Identifying what is missing in these other philosophers’ accounts will help me to develop my own positive specification, which I shall present in Sections 5 and 6. (shrink)

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In Book I of the Republic, or so I shall argue, Plato gives us a glimpse of sheer horror. In the character, beliefs, and desires of Thrasymachus, Plato aims to personify some of the most diabolical dangers that lurk in human nature. In this way, the role that Thrasymachus plays for Plato is akin to the role that for Hobbes is played by the bellum omnium contra omnes, the war of all against all, which would allegedly be the inevitable result (...) of a "state of nature", where human beings have no government to terrorize them into obedience. It is also akin to the role that for Kant is played by the "radical evil" that is allegedly an indelible feature of human nature itself. As I shall try to show, the desires that characterize Thrasymachus are of the kind that are described in Book IX as "lawless" desires, desire of the wild insane kind that dominate the tyrannical soul; and his beliefs systematically reflect these desires, in a way that has its own hideously coherent logic. (shrink)

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Comparative risk assessment is playing an ever-increasing role in environmental policy priority setting, as manifested in national and numerous subnational comparative risk projects. It is widely accepted that public values, interests, and concerns should play an important role in CRA. However, the philosophical basis for public involvement in CRA has not been adequately explored, nor have comparative risk projects always made explicit their rationales for public involvement. The author examines the political, normative, and epistemic rationales for public involvement and explores (...) the case for public involvement in the making of ethical, valuation, and evidentiary judgments. The author considers key issues each rationale raises, problems eachfaces, and some of the implications of each for specific aspects of CRA. (shrink)

From early on, comparative philosophy has had on offer a high variety of goals, approaches and methodologies. Such high variety is still today a trademark of the discipline, and it is not uncommon of representatives of one camp in comparative philosophy to think of those in other camps as not really being about ‘comparative philosophy’. Much of the disagreement arguably has to do with methodological problems related to the concept of comparison and with the widely prevailing but unwarranted assumption that (...) comparative philosophy should be about comparing ‘culturally different philosophies’. This paper seeks to problematize this assumption by clarifying conceptually the notions of ‘comparative philosophy’ and of ‘comparison’, by showing the prevalence of the assumption in recent second-order discussions of methodology in comparative philosophy and its restraining implications in a randomly selected contribution of ‘Chinese philosophy’. At the end, a rallying call for a (self-)critical comparative philosophy is issued. (shrink)

The contemporary debate on the metaphysical side of metaethics is dominated by two paradigms—reductive naturalism and primitivist non- naturalism. It is argued here that these are both extreme views. In principle, it should be possible for there to be a host of intermediate views between these two extremes. In fact, most of the views that were taken on these metaphysical questions by philosophers of ancient and medieval times differed from both reductive naturalism and primitivist non-naturalism. However, the metaphysical views of (...) these past philosophers cannot easily be endorsed today. This is because our conception of the natural world has changed from that of these premodern thinkers, because of the development of modern natural science. Nonetheless, it is still possible to make sense of intermediate positions, lying between the two extremes of reductive naturalism and primitivist non- naturalism. These intermediate positions are prima facie promising, and deserve careful consideration from contemporary metaethicists. (shrink)

A recent scientifically and historically grounded theory on human genetic and cultural evolution suggests why the religious elements of culture became the primary source of both peaceful cooperation within societal ingroups and at the same time of destructive wars with outgroups. It also describes the role of religion in the evolution of ape‐men into humans. The theory indicates why human societal life is not long viable without the underpinning of a healthy, noncoercive, religious faith; why sound religious faith is weak (...) now; and why we may hope both for better morals and for worldwide cooperation in peace. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how to accommodate non-consequentialist constraints with a broadly value-based conception of reasons for action. It turns out that there are two grades of non-consequentialist constraints. The first grade involves attaching ethical importance to such distinctions as the doing/allowing distinction, and the distinction between intended and unintended consequences that is central to the Doctrine of Double Effect. However, at least within the value-based framework, this first grade is insufficient to explain rights, which ground weighty reasons against (...) infringing those rights that need not be outweighed even when infringing those rights is necessary for preventing a larger number of people from having their rights infringed in the same way. Such rights form a second grade of non-consequentialist constraints: within the value-based framework, this second grade is best explained in terms of the intrinsically relational values and disvalues of interpersonal interactions and relationships. (shrink)

It is widely held that for an action to be free it must be the case that the agent can do otherwise. Compatibilists and incompatibilists disagree over what this ability amounts to. Two recent articles offer novel perspectives on the debate by employing Angelika Kratzer’s semantics of ‘can’. Alex Grzankowski proposes that Kratzer’s semantics favour incompatibilism because they make valid a version of the Consequence Argument. Christian List argues that Kratzer’s semantics favour a novel form of compatibilism. I argue that (...) List’s compatibilist application of Kratzer’s semantics faces problems not faced by Grzankowski’s incompatibilist employment of them. On the other hand I argue that Kratzer’s semantics make Grzankowski’s version of the Consequence Argument valid only at the cost of rendering it dialectically useless. Contrary to both views Kratzer’s semantics do not appear to add substantial weight to either side of the compatibilism/incompatibilism dispute. (shrink)

This is a review of Ruth Garrett Millikan's 1993 book, White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice.